....the cathedral, with its two square towers, still stands at the highest point, and may be seen for miles around. Its windows are all shattered, and many surrounding smaller buildings have been wrecked, but only two shells have actually struck the church, and from a distance it still appears untouched.
On entering the ruined part of the city, one is reminded of Pompeii, not merely because of the terrible loneliness and silence, but from the mute evidences on every hand of the sudden and unprepared flight of the population. In some of the stores on the main business street the whole front of the buildings has been sheered away, yet inside, among the fallen fragments, fragile goods are still seen exposed on counters as if for sale. In a café, the billiard balls and cues are still in their racks on the wall, though a shell which came through the opposite wall has destroyed the tables. In a drug-store there are shelves, along which tiny piles of shattered glass at regular intervals show where the bottles used to stand...